Blair Mountain Part III: Working Together to Save Blair Mountain

This lesson plan is appropriate for middle-school students in history, social studies and English courses. It meets West Virginia State Content Standard & Objective SS.0.08.05.06 for the eighth grade. This lesson plan will take approximately 60 minutes.

Overview: This document serves as a well-structured outline for a middle school level lesson plan on the March on Blair Mountain.

Objective: In this lesson plan students will learn about the March on Blair Mountain, a five-day trek that followed the miners’ path from Marmet, W.Va., to Blair Mountain. They will explore how labor and environmental groups came together to save Blair Mountain. By the end of the lesson plan they should be able to discuss the march and why it is important to people coming from a myriad of backgrounds and perspectives.

Resources:  Materials from Aurora Lights’ web page  Internet access  Projector

Before Class:  Read the Call to Action: http://marchonblairmountain.org/?page_id=4  Read excerpt from opinion-editorial by Terry Steele: http://auroralights.org/map_project/resources.php?article=5

Introduction/Video (8 min):  Watch End of March Recap Video by Jordan Freeman: http://vimeo.com/25114684

Discussion (20 min): The following questions are drawn from readings, from material covered in Lesson Plan 2 and from the video. Primary questions are in bold, with optional follow-up questions.

 What individuals and groups joined the Blair Mountain Coalition? Why is Blair Mountain important to many West Virginians? To environmentalists? To union miners and other forms of organized labor? To historians?  How did the marchers communicate their desire to save Blair Mountain? What forms of expression did they use (Art, singing, walking etc.)? Which of these forms do you find to be the most potent or effective?  Do you think the march was an important part of the struggle to save Blair? Why or why not? How do you think the march worked together with the struggle to have the Blair battlefields placed on the National Registry of Historic Places? Do you think that different groups coming together, from labor to environmental to historians, made the march more meaningful?  Are your critical of the march? Why?

Activity (30 min or as homework): The March on Blair Mountain was a unique coalition (different groups working together) of labor, environmental and historic preservation groups. The original march was made up of miners from many different places and backgrounds. Think about how diverse issues can be interrelated and how groups fighting for different things can work together. Express your ideas in one of the following ways, making sure to include specific examples from both the 1921 Battle of Blair Mountain and the 2011 March on Blair Mountain:  Select a group in your life—such as family, church or a class—and explain in a letter why Blair is important and what is going on there.  Create a piece of art, write a song or story that expresses how the March on Blair Mountain was a coalition between environment, labor and historians.

We welcome all final projects here at Journey Up Coal River, and would be happy to host exemplary projects in our online gallery.

Conclusion: At the end of this lesson plan, students should be able to talk about the history of Blair Mountain, mountaintop removal and the March on Blair Mountain. They should be able to draw connections between history and the mountain’s contemporary importance.

Content Standards & Objectives:  SS.0.08.05.06: This objective comes from the History Standard. In it, students are required to “analyze the evolution of the labor movement in West Virginia & the United States.” This objective is met by examinations and dis- cussions of labor’s involvement in the March on Blair Mountain.